When hucksters hijack your telephone number

My wife and I were watching television when she phoned herself. We knew this because her name and telephone number appeared on the TV screen (a thing the cable company does when the phone rings).

She looked at me. I looked at her.

“I didn’t do it,” she declared.

I picked up the phone. Heck, maybe it was a “Twilight Zone” sort of thing and my wife was calling from the future to warn me not to shovel the snow this winter.

But my wife, who was seated nearby, was not on the phone. I said “hello” four times, but no one answered.

A few days later, I received a phone call on my cell. I waited for someone to reply when I clicked on.

There was silence.

“Hello,” I finally said.

“Hello,” said a male voice.

That person then said that I had called him.

“Who are you?” I asked

“You called me,” he said again.

“I did not,” I replied.

The man explained he had received a call from my number on his answering machine. He was calling back.

“I think someone has hacked your phone number,” the man said. “You had better change it.”

I may send a stranger who calls me money, but I am certainly not going to change my cell phone number because he tells me to.

My wife and I are likely victims of caller ID spoofing.

This is a very common thing (happens millions of times a year) in which a person deliberately falsifies the information transmitted to your caller ID display to disguise their identity.

It is most often used by telemarketers who know you aren’t going to answer your phone if the caller ID identifies them correctly as Hucksters R Us.

We’ve been getting these spoofing calls for a couple of years now, but they have really picked up in recent months. And the caller IDs being stolen have become more misleading.

We’ve gotten spoofs using the telephone numbers of our local library, the police and our municipal government, to name just a few.

When the local police call you, using their real number, you tend to answer the phone.

I was outraged when this started. But apparently no one else cares.

Well, that’s probably not entirely true. People probably care, but no one seems to care enough to have done anything about it.

And now we are calling ourselves and other people.

Since my wife was home at the time her call came in, I thought it was pretty funny. But if she had been out shopping, I would have been concerned. I always pick up the phone when I see my wife’s name on the caller ID.

It ticks me off to think I might someday hesitate because some telemarketing firm has stolen her caller ID number.

I thought about all the parents who likely would have the same reaction if they found out someone had spoofed their children’s telephone numbers.

As for stealing government phone numbers, that seems like it ought to be a federal crime.

I mean, suppose police are trying to notify people about a terrorist attack or a criminal in the neighborhood?

They might just be trying to warn people about spoofing scams and folks will simply refuse to pick up thinking it’s, well, a scam.

Email: philkadner@gmail.com.

Send letters to: letters@suntimes.com.